Days Get Away From You

Gentle readers, I’ve been neglectful of reflection recently. But not without cause. It seems that every day, some new reason to worry crops up. Since the fateful Dry Run, a few North African regimes have fallen. Also, the price of oil has continued to climb and the Nation’s debt outlook has been downgraded. Yes, it seems that these are certainly terrifying times. But there are simple solutions.

In Pennsylvania, as I’m sure there are in a lot of places, there is an Energy Coop. I get 100% of my electricity from renewable sources. It’s also cheaper than the main power company’s coal, oil and nuclear sourced power. There’s step one.

And today, on this glorious Sunday, I finally got my first rotation of crops into the soil. I’m three weeks off from when I was planning, but I feel that I’ll still get two good harvests out of the garden this year.

What else? Well, everything else is the same for the rest. Gloomy outlooks in all facets of Western Culture has everyone scared. Me too. But we can do something about it. If you were to look back through my communiqués, you’d see that there is a line where I state that in my industry, it takes twice the amount of power to run one small biosafety cabinet as it does to power two typical American homes. There - RIGHT THERE!! - is what we can do about it. On this day where we are told that He rose from the grave, let us keep our way of life out of the grave. I know it seems that it seems that we have no money, but that is because we are told that we have no money. A little from all of us can take us first off of foreign oil and then completely off of fossil fuels. That’s all we have to do. Homes, companies, and all can run from sun, wind and other renewable power. We can do it.

I sincerely think that to be true.

HST Day

In a sense - er, - in most senses, it is wrong to celebrate a suicide. But one must die sometime, right? And to die - to follow this terribly silly logic to the end - one must first be born. We see nothing wrong with celebrating birthdays, do we? So there are two inevitable things for any “person”, lest taxes. Why not celebrate death? Do so no matter how it comes, right?

So back to it. One year ago today, at the outskirts of Philadelphia that is the Suburban Farm, we had snow that would rival the great State of Michigan in her grandest hour. I built a snow pyre to Hunter that day. Today, as miserably muddy as this day is, I couldn’t. I built a small fire instead. It was comprised of some branches that fell from the recent winds and the top layer of leaves from the compost pile (not composted, or course). The chickens all bowed in homage.

The police and the fire department both showed. Seems a fire after dusk is against the law…

Dear reader… Did you ever

Senior Moment

Remember the GM Card? There was a huge advertising campaign for the card that would earn you points toward a GM vehicle. It had a website on the commercial. That’s the first one I can remember. That was 15 years ago. All young teenagers right now have no memory of a time before websites. Probably many 18 year olds, for all intents and purposes, are the same way.

Around that same time gas hung around a dollar a gallon. It first went over a dollar back in 1979, of course, but then a barrel of oil cost just of $15. So those 16 year olds that have always had websites have also always known gas to be more than $2 a gallon.

The average price of a house sold in 1995 was a little over $150,000. Today, it’s $270,000. The average U.S. wage has gone from $25K to $40K in that same time. But that’s only for those people with wages to begin with. And, of course, legal wages reported to the government.

At a very rapid pace, the youth are smarter and have more skills then the middle aged. “But we,” say the middle aged, “have more experience.” Yes, but our experience has lead to a very long war, huge deficits, and a failing infrastructure. So we must ask, does our experience count for anything?

50F

And yesterday wasn’t bad either. The feet of snow that fell weeks ago has taken the form of glacial ice sheets covering the land not trodden. The land that is trodden is mud. It would have been smart to require all houses built with a mud room off the back and the front, but that didn’t happen. If you pay attention going down the road, you’ll notice people trying desperately to keep their socks clean while removing shoes on the front porch.

But my normal infatuation with mud rooms is lax today. It is so because it is Sunday and it’s 50 degrees. I’ve had to run a few errands, but the day has been spent daydreaming up what this summer will be…

Yesterday, I did some cleaning in the greenhouse. Yes, greenhouse. The chickens are now on borrowed time. Maybe two or three weeks left and they’re back outside. I opened up a minimal amount of space on my heavily-lacquered workbench and planted the cabbage seeds. Standing there in the sunshine and hot greenhouse, I believe that I have decided on the following:

This Summer’s Project: The Back of the Farmhouse. It ain’t broke, but she sure is ailing.

Here’s the rundown. One side of my house faces the road. Another faces the driveway and my neighbor’s house two car-widths away. The other side is shared with the neighbor. Then there is the back of the house. The three outside walls all have a lime green siding on them. One neat thing is this, though: you can only see one side at a time. The narrowness of the roads and yards cuts the field of vision down to one side at a time. So this year, I start on the back of the house and remove the siding. This begins the great learning curve of teaching myself how to repoint brick and fill the holes left by lath in my brick. And why not? I spent far too little time outside last year.

This happy day was needed, friends. One of the links I shared previously was… well… it was a damn lie. The cot I purchased, upon assembly, presented a tag to me. It said, “made in china.” And then what else? Well, as it was already together, I decided to keep it. I sat on it and fell through to the floor. But let’s not focus on the negative…

We’re just over a month out from the dry run. We’re six weeks to plants in the ground. We’re two months to some new chicks to add to the brood. And we’re staring down the barrel of a masonry project that will have the early summer blow by like it was never even here.

I hope your plans, dear readers, are just as exciting to you as these are to me. Feel free to share!

The Hunt – February Buy List

The countdown continues. We're seven weeks out from the first dry run. Some things need to be in hand to make that dry run meaningful. The tent and stove are in hand, of course. We can call that the January Buy List. Here is February:
1) cots
2) cookware
3) toilet
4) hunting knife
5) water jugs
With two weeks available in March, the last few items needed will be acquired then. I'll have to ship those directly to Michigan. Time is moving quickly and spring is on the way. Soon, I'll have to turn my attention to the garden as well.
But for now, it's Sunday, and a lovely one at that. Why not ruin it by doing my taxes?

Regulations

This was a big week in the world of regulation. How’s that for a hook? Bet you can’t wait to keep reading…

President Obama says reduce regulations. This is an incredibly easy statement to make. However, it is insulting to the thousands over the years that have created rules to protect the public from the free market. One of the things that the free market needs to thrive is a fully knowledgeable class of consumers. On the other hand, one of the things that most inhibits the free market is knowledgeable consumers that sees when the cost of items doesn’t match the usable value. How does the Western world ensure consumers are protected and informed? Regulations. So which of them are “just plain stupid” exactly?

Taco Bell’s “meat product” doesn’t meet the federal regulation for beef. According to the lawsuit, it’s also below the regulation for “meat product” at only 35% beef. To me, that may actually be a selling point. Mixing beef with oatmeal is a pretty green trick. But regardless, shouldn’t we know what comprises our food?

Pennsylvania’s new governor is ignoring the fact that PA is the last state to NOT have natural gas drilling regulations. We’re also in the middle of the “fragging” controversy. Shouldn’t we have some limits on how fast business can move before science can prove that, at least, we don’t do irreparable damage? There’s a similar row over growing genetically modified organisms. Biology here is pretty simple: plants cross-pollinate. Man-made round-up-ready genes will get out into the wild.

The bank failures and the mortgage crisis almost brought down America, despite regulations being in place. Maybe they weren’t the right ones, sure, but I doubt the families that lost their houses would say that we should let the banks do as they please unchecked.

Pharma industry recalls are both fresh in the mind and, unfortunately, continuing in the industry news. The apparent gap between FDA and EPA regulations on saccharine has been quoted ad nauseum: FDA says you can eat it and the EPA calls it a hazardous material. Quoting that as being an example of regulations gone wild is, itself, just plain ignorant. Most chemicals in bulk are hazardous. That’s why we can’t dump food process waste untreated into estuaries. A tanker full of whiskey is a bomb, for goodness sake. Delicious, sure, but a bomb nonetheless.

So what do we do about it?

One final, unrelated note. I hear that one of the followers of this little communication is in a show to open in February. I wish I were able to get back to Michigan to see it.

The Excitement is not Ebbing

We are only a few Saturdays past the new year’s dawn. Already it feels like I’m falling behind. There is so much that needs to be done to be ready for the Great Hunt. Today, with nothing spectacular planned and lacking ability to sleep in, I made myself a hearty breakfast of Biscuits and Gravy, loaded up on coffee, and headed north to the Dixon Muzzleloading Shop (

http://www.dixonmuzzleloading.com

). Two men working the store guided a surprising number of shoppers through the store packed with various and sundry goods for shooting off out-of-date weaponry. I started a kit there today, in a gasketed dry box (made in the U.S. by MTM) of all the things I wish I had just a few weeks back, when I and my friend Frizzen got just about everything we could get stuck in the barrel of a gun stuck down the barrel of our gun. I have a tool designed to pull out stuck ammo, to remove cleaning patches that slipped off the ramrod, a device that delivers FFFF powder to the pan reliably, and a brass hammer for knapping flints. I also picked up a couple of “Pioneer Press” books on how not to shoot your eye out while learning to use a flintlock.

From there, since I was in the neighborhood, I went to a certain HUGE sporting goods store that starts with the letter C. Moving from Dixon to this place was akin to the difference between the old downtown streets imagined in movies of the 1950s and going into a Walmart. I felt sick. My mind tends to associate outdoorsy ideas with Americana. This is wrong. Outside of a pair of woolen socks, I found nothing made outside of China or some other developing nation that trades slave labor for cheap goods. Even the famous Woolrich brand red-and-black plaid flannel jacket was imported. I left with my socks and a Hav-a-Hank bandana.

Satisfied for today, and wearing a new orange hat, it’s time for laundry and playoff football.

The Land of Pharma - A real publication

I just had an article published in Controlled Environments Magazine. Here’s the link. Enjoy!!

http://www.cemag.us/article/holistic-user-requirements-example-through-airlock-design

And this reminds me that I need to get back to the story I was telling months and months ago… Stay tuned.

So, this is a list.

Some things may already be accounted for, some others not. The reason I’m putting this up, dear reader, is because I’ve had a heck of a good time looking up “camping” solutions for these everyday issues. Have a house? Well, what’s the best alternative for a week in the woods? Have work shoes and play shoes (as my mother drove into me as a child)? What will be needed to keep my feet intact in early January 2012? If you have some time, I encourage you to flip through the links below and explore the pages. Some of them, like those sites designed for self-sufficiency or for emergency, have a lot of rather interesting items. I found it enlightening as well that such a specialized website as “Camp Toilet Reviews” actually exists, and, I assume, thrives.

I tried my best to find American-made versions of all of the items below. I will, of course, be keeping my eyes open for second-hand items. If anyone out there has any leads or ideas, please leave a comment!

Guns - example,

http://www.tcarms.com/firearms/mzTraditional.php

All the stuff that goes with guns (to be detailed separately)

Tent -

http://www.davistent.com/

. Will get a 10 x12 tent

Ground cover / tarp - also from Davis Tent

Stove - Unsure of the brand we’ve purchased. It is resting in Michigan.

Cooking supplies including a way to make coffee

http://www.opencountrycampware.com/

Food -

http://www.mountainhouse.com/

Cots

http://americanmadeoutdoors.com/product/SSI-15040.html

Sleeping bag / pillow -

http://www.featheredfriends.com/Picasso/Bags/BagsExpedition.html

http://www.westernmountaineering.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=dealers.dealers&step=3&zipinput=19454&zipradius=25&type=US

http://wiggys.com/moreinfo.cfm?Product_ID=59&CFID=384797&CFTOKEN=27499236

Lanterns, lighting, flashlights, etc - Maglite is American made. Hopefully, we’ll find old oil lanterns on garage sales.

Hunting Knife

http://www.barkriverknifetool.com/knifedetail.asp?kid=23

Rope -

http://www.rawganique.com/HArope.htm

First Aid Kit(s) -

http://www.earthwaveliving.com/catalog/Medical_First_Aid_Kits-114-1.html?gclid=COnpgKe1maYCFcbd4AodWUyZoA

Jump-start box for the truck (I have one)

Water containers -

http://beprepared.com/category.asp_Q_c_E_160_A_c2c_E_ln_A_name_E_WaterStorageandAccessories

Tools - Shovel, hammer, snow shovel, etc

Camp toilet -

http://campingtoiletreviews.com/

Lots of waterproof matches -

http://beprepared.com/search.asp?t=ss&ss=waterproof+matches&SID=GOOGLE&EID=GLEKC200703113&gclid=COjEt9y1maYCFc9w5QodJQ_JoQ&bhcd2=1293899080

Clothes - For Hunting, For in the tent, For sleeping, gloves, shoes for in the tent.

Boots -

http://www.danner.com/boots/canadiantm-600g-hunting-boots.html

Snowshoes -

http://www.northernlites.com/

Backpack

https://www.battlelakeoutdoors.com/shop/catalog/

A way to charge cell phones with manual power

http://www.windstreampower.com/

Chains for truck tires

http://www.tirechain.com/CarChains.htm

Camper for back of truck. Get a sliding window? Come on Craigslist!

Writing utensils

Personal hygiene stuff so we don’t lose our teeth. Towels. Unscented Soap. Toothpaste and toothbrush. Razor, maybe.

Newspapers to help start fire.

Alarm, if not using the phone.

Cameras

Whiskey

Camp Flag. We should design something. I’m open for suggestions.

What else is missing?